Dan Hodges is a former Labour Party and GMB trade union official, and has managed numerous independent political campaigns. He writes about Labour with tribal loyalty and without reservation. You can read Dan's recent work here

I'd be horrified if I thought Mitt Romney was going to become American president. Fortunately, he isn't

So the convention season is now over, and the verdict is in. Barack Obama won.

Whilst Mitt Romney gained virtually no bounce from the Republicans' gathering in Tampa, Obama has seen a surge coming out of Charlotte estimated to be worth between four and eight points. The latest state polls have Obama strengthening his lead in the key swing state of Ohio, and inching into the lead in South Carolina, a state Mitt Romney should have had nailed to his win column months ago. Over the weekend it was announced the Romney campaign is pulling adverts from two other states it hoped to keep competitive, Pennsylvania and Michigan, and the latest figures show Obama actually overtook Romney in fundraising in August.

This obviously doesn’t guarantee Obama re-election in November. But, given he was odds on already going into the convention season, it makes the mountain Mitt Romney has to climb one of Eiger-like proportions.

Obviously to some people – not least my friend and colleague Tim Stanley – this is just typical pinko Lefty liberal wishful thinking. Indeed yesterday Tim penned a piece in which he gently took to task those of us who claim the current election “is between a charismatic centrist and a wackadoodle Right-winger with more money than sense” and who “react with horror and surprise” at the prospect of a Romney victory.

And to an extent, Tim’s right. I think Romney is a wackadoodle Right winger, and if I thought he was going to win I certainly would react with horror and surprise. But fortunately he’s not going to.

Tim would disagree, and his opposing thesis is neatly characterised in the headline accompanying his article, “Americans make natural conservatives, which is why Romney's doing better than the British think he should”. Apparently, blinded by Obama stardust, we Lefties ignore the existential character of America, and overlook the “qualities that turned a rebellious colony into the most powerful nation on Earth”. Specifically, Tim identifies five reasons why Romney is likely to prevail: America is big, Americans like God, Americans like money, Americans don’t like monopolies, Americans don’t like government.

OK, let’s deal with the Obama stardust thing first. Anyone who doesn’t grasp the significance of Barack Obama’s presidency, or want it to succeed, doesn’t understand America. Or at least, they don’t understand the significance of race in America, which amounts to the same thing. 150 years ago the United States literally tore itself apart over the issue. In the 1950s, 60s and 70s it came close to doing it all over again. When Barack Obama was born, not only could people of colour not even contemplate a black president, but in many parts of a country that at the time resembled apartheid South Africa they couldn’t vote without putting their lives at risk.

So if some of us regard a black man sitting in the Oval Office as quite a big deal, I’m sorry about that. But that’s because it is.

Indeed that’s one of the reasons why many on the Right dislike Barack Obama. Not out of racism. But because he is the living rebuttal to the main plank of Tim’s argument, which is that the United States is a bastion of conservatism.

The Right see the United States as their private property. And they hate – absolutely detest – anything that reminds them it isn’t actually their own personal neo-conservative theme park.

Yes, America is traditionally economically conservative. But in the last 50 years it has also been a benchmark of social progressivism. Black Power. The Dorothy Dollar. Women’s Lib. They are as much party of American history and culture as Mickey Mouse and McDonalds.

There is no inbuilt US conservative political majority, nor has there ever been one. Tim claims “The Republican Party enjoys a natural advantage in US politics, which is why the Democrats only won the White House twice from 1980 until 2008”. In fact, between 1980 and 2008 the Democrats won four times; Clinton in ’92 and ’96, Gore in 2000 when he won the most votes (and won Florida, but that’s a separate argument), and Obama in 2008. Meanwhile, the Republicans won four times: Reagan ’80 and ’84, Bush Snr in 88, and Bush Jnr in 2004. What’s more, since the war, the Democrats have won an additional four elections: ’48, ’60, ’64 and ’76, and the Republicans have won four: ’52, ’56, ’68 and ’72 (and a fat lot of good ’72 did them).

The problem isn’t actually with Lefty idealists transposing their dreams on to Obama. It’s Right-wing idealists who transpose their ideological romanticism on to the United States in general. “Having so much space means they don’t share the British obsession with conservation of the natural habitat,” writes Tim. “Nor do they accept the notion of limits. Austerity is an alien idea in a land where natural wealth seems limitless.” Which is lovely, but this election isn’t going to be decided home on the range. You won’t be seeing Mitt Romney doing much stumping in Wyoming or Nevada. It’ll be settled in the housing estates of Indianapolis and the retirement homes of Dade county.

And Mitt’s particular brand of voracious venture capitalism isn’t playing too well there. “In the UK it’s considered gauche to want stuff. When we look at Mitt Romney on his jet ski we think, 'How vulgar,' or 'He should donate his jet ski to the poor'. When an American sees Romney having fun on the lake, they think, 'Man, I’d love a jet ski'. No they don’t, Tim. They think he’s a rich prat, just like they thought John Kerry was a rich prat when the saw him windsurfing.

The election won’t be decided by God, or love of money, or fear of big government. It will be decided by the fact that Barack Obama has proved a moderately good president, hasn’t turned out to be the Marxist Antichrist, and leads what is easily, and rightly, perceived to currently be the more moderate of the two main political parties.

Bin Laden’s dead, General Motors is alive. That’s about as existential as this election’s going to get.